


Tom O' Bedlam

by Entropy House (AnonEhouse)



Category: Drake's Venture (1980)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dominance, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-09
Updated: 2012-10-09
Packaged: 2017-11-15 23:03:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/532756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonEhouse/pseuds/Entropy%20House
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reincarnated Thomas always remembered Francis killing him, so he withdrew into his own world as a child. As a teenager, helpless and worn down by fear, he meets reincarnated Francis, who remembers nothing... but he likes Thomas's looks... and his fear.</p><p>(Note: The rape is only mentioned as happening before the story.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tom O' Bedlam

(If you are reading this on any PAY site this is a STOLEN WORK, the author has NOT Given Permission for it to be here. If you're paying to read it, you're being cheated too because you can read it on Archiveofourown for FREE.)

If he hadn't kept putting it off until his student adviser warned him his graduation was at risk, Frank would have had a lot more choice for his community service work. He hadn't thought about it one way or the other because he'd been busy with football and keeping his grades up enough to make college a possibility. Not that he really wanted to go to college. He wanted to do _something_ real and exciting. Maybe get a cheap hog, fix it up and see the country, bum around, do manual labor to get by for a year and... what was it... find himself.

He had always felt really...not quite lost, but like something was missing from his life. But he'd be an idiot to lose his chance at a high school diploma because he didn't bother to do some stupid charity work. Free labor. It was a great deal for everyone except the students.

By the time he signed up there were only two options left, both in hospitals. He opted for the mental hospital because craziness wasn't catching. He had worked hard getting his body into top shape and didn't want to chance messing it up with some super-staph infection just when he was finally going to be free. 

The hospital employee who was to decide his position looked him over and said, "Do you think you could handle yourself if a patient became... agitated?"

Frank shrugged. "Yeah, sure, Mr. Hatton." He flexed a bicep casually. He wasn't very tall, but he knew damn well he was buff. "Just watch 'em from a safe distance until someone senior comes, right?" He'd glanced at the service manual. Basically, the job was cake. Watch and yell for help if there was trouble. Smile at the loonies. Play cards with any of them who have something like a full deck. Pick up any trash you see in the corridors.

"Right. Normally you won't have any trouble- we wouldn't assign service volunteers to anyone violent, but it could happen. If you have any hesitation about the possibility let me know and we'll assign you to a non-patient capacity."

"Which would be what, laundry, mowin' the grass?"

"Yes, some sort of maintenance, probably."

Frank shrugged again. "I'd rather work with people. I'm not afraid of anyone. I can handle myself."

"Just don't handle _them._ You're not qualified."

Frank nodded. "Yes, sir." He wondered how long the prohibition would last-- probably about five seconds after one of the nutters needed washing up. Well, he'd cleaned up after his drunken bum father for enough years. Mess didn't bother him. And he was rather cheered by the thought that he would have more authority than _someone_ , even if it was only a bunch of lunatics. He was sick of taking orders from teachers and his father.

Frank changed into white trousers, shirt and slip-on loafers, clipped his orange ID card to his pocket and then listened carefully as Mr. Hatton showed him around the place. "Now, you probably won't have much to do with this patient." The man slid back an observation hatch, and Frank peered inside, mildly surprised to see a young man, probably no older than himself, sitting in a chair and rocking back and forth. He had a weird, padded helmet on, and no shirt, only thin blue pajama trousers imprinted with the name of the hospital. There were bruises on his chest and waist. 

"What's wrong with him?" Somehow, this man disturbed him. Maybe because Frank never thought of crazy people being his own age. When you were seventeen, life was good, and you were strong. 

"Thomas Doughtie is severely autistic. He's been withdrawn into a world of his own his whole life. His family had him committed here a few years ago."

"Huh." Frank wondered what sort of world it was. So much better than this one that he didn't want to leave it? Or maybe he was just too wimpy for the real world. "That's like being retarded, right? I didn't know they put you in mental hospitals for that."

"No, it's not the same thing. Mr. Doughtie is extremely intelligent-- on the rare occasions he's interacted with anyone, it's quite obvious. Autism isn't why he's here, although it adds to his problems. He's paranoid and delusional."

"Huh." Well, that was a double-dose of nutcake, all right. Pity. He was a good-looking guy under the bruises. "And he hurts himself?"

Hatton looked at Frank. "Another patient gave him those bruises. He does sometimes hit his head on the wall, though."

Frank looked at Thomas again and felt a twinge of sympathy. He'd been raped, that was what Hatton wasn't saying. Frank became irrationally angry at Doughtie. He didn't want to think of the patients as real people, or give a damn about them. This job was just a means to an end. "Why doesn't he wear a shirt?"

"He's hypersensitive... hates anything touching his neck, it makes him frantic. Now, I'll show you the bathing facilities, the employees' lounge, and the kitchen." Hatton glanced at his watch. "Then I'll leave you to it.

@^@

Frank finished sweeping up and looked around. This place was boring enough during the day, but the night shift was dead. Half the patients were doped into never-never land and the rest were locked in their rooms pretending to be doped. He had kept thinking about Thomas. Maybe if he went and looked at him again, he'd be able to stop thinking about him. He locked the broom away with all the other potentially dangerous things, like mops and buckets and spray bottles of Windex, and went to the ward.

Thomas still had a private room, privacy bought by rape. Frank looked in. Thomas was lying in bed, eyes open, staring at the ceiling. His face was blank and he wasn't wearing the helmet- probably couldn't sleep with it on, not that it looked like he slept much. He had nice hair, Frank noticed, badly cut and desperately in need of combing, but thick and dark. His skin was milk pale, and Frank could see the blue of veins in his right wrist, which lay turned upward on the sheets. He looked down the length of Thomas's body. Poor bastard had an erection, and hadn't sense enough even to deal with it. He shook his head. He said softly, "Poor Tom 'o Bedlam', remembering a fragment from a literature class.

Thomas's eyes turned towards him, _seeing_ him despite what Hatton had said. Frank gasped. Thomas's eyes were sane, and sad, and infinitely deep. Frank felt as if he'd been punched in the gut when Thomas's lips parted and he spoke, softly, "You've come at last. Are you going to kill me now, Francis? I'm so tired of being afraid of you, of waiting for it."

Frank had the keys. He probably wasn't supposed to, but they were on the same ring as the key to the janitorial supplies. He opened the door and entered the room. "How do you know my name?" He shouldn't have gone in, but he couldn't resist. He was afraid of Thomas, and so he had to face him.

"How could I not?" Thomas looked at him with hungry eyes. "Sometimes we both remember, sometimes neither of us. This time it's just me, I suppose."

"Yeah, that's right." Frank's guts clenched again. That soft, educated voice seemed so at odds with madness. But this was madness. "I don't remember. But I'll tell you this much. I'm not going to kill you."

"No?" Thomas's gaze went down from Frank's face along his arm to the ring of keys. "Ah. I see. This time I don't threaten your authority. You have the keys. All I have are the memories." He shivered abruptly. "All my life, I was afraid to do anything, afraid you'd be around the next corner if I looked up, if I moved, if I spoke. I loved you. Even at the end, I loved you."

"You don't know me."

"I never did." Thomas kept staring at the keys. "Francis, will you take me out of here?"

"I can't do that."

"I promise this time I'll follow you without protest. You can do whatever you like, go wherever you please, and I'll never utter a word of complaint. It'll be like Ireland... anything you want, Francis. Anything at all." Thomas looked up at Frank. "You can beat me and fuck me and starve me. Just so you don't kill me, Francis. I really don't want you to do that again. Not yet. I want to live for a while this time. Feel the sun. Make love on a ship at anchor. Watch the penguins come out of the surf."

Every time Thomas started to make a little too much sense he took a right hand turn into the Twilight Zone. But, fuck, he was gorgeous. Frank reached out and stroked Thomas's cheek, letting his hand slide down to the smoothness of throat, feeling the pulse race frantically against his hand as Thomas went even whiter. "I can't," he said. "Oh, I bet I could sneak you out of here, but could you live in the real world? Could you leave your dreams?" He liked feeling the flutter of Thomas's pulse against his palm. It made him feel stronger, more like a man, than anything he'd ever done.

"For you. For you, Francis, I would." Thomas's eyes were wide and terrified and damn if it didn't make him more beautiful.

Frank squeezed Thomas's throat. He wondered what it would be like to fuck someone who made no demands. Everyone wanted something. All Thomas wanted was to live. But he wasn't fighting Frank even for that. Frank's fingers opened and caressed Thomas's throat, then went down to the nipples, tight peaks, hard little cold knots, then further, to Thomas's cock, still erect and dampening the blue pajamas.

"I would own you." He tightened his grip.

"Yes, Francis."

Frank grinned and released Thomas. "You're very pretty, but I won't be on the run for the rest of my life just so I can have your ass." He turned to leave the room, but turned back as he heard the bed creak. Thomas had risen onto one elbow, hand outstretched in entreaty. Thomas said, "Please. I'll do anything."

Frank stared at him. "Be sane for me. The day they release you, I'll come for you."

Thomas was silent for a long moment. "I remember being sane. I can pretend. Will it be enough if I fool them?"

Frank considered it. Crazy Thomas would obey him as if he were God. He liked the idea. A lot. He smiled. "Yes."


End file.
